


And I swear that I'll always paint you

by mendoza



Category: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: 2016, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 07:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6694237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mendoza/pseuds/mendoza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Your soulmate was an artist centuries ago and you both were able to meet again in this lifetime. You don’t remember anything but you’d be at the museum, looking at the picture that looks like you with curiosity until your soulmate (who remembers everything) comes by and asks you what you think of the painting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I swear that I'll always paint you

**Author's Note:**

> for Maggi, the biggest nerd in the universe and who pushed me to write this :p

I didn’t go to museums often. They made me uncomfortable. All these secrets, all these lives hanging on walls for everyone else to watch. 

They were inviting you to see the world through their eyes. I liked that, watching the world through someone else’s eyes. But I wasn’t sure I liked the intimacy that came along with it. Maybe that intimacy was why museums were one of those quiet places.

I was standing in front of a portrait, which was apparently only recently added to their collection. The boy in the painting had a book in his lap, his brows furrowed in concentration.

The painting held something sad and melancholic. The dark colors seemed to drag across the canvas. And I felt like this was a painting I understood. I knew about sadness and melancholy. Maybe too much so.

"It was drawn 1864. The painter used oil paint, so the painting actually took weeks. The thing with oil paint is that every layer takes ages to dry. It’s a pain in the ass." A boy stood beside me, grinning at his last words. I looked at him. His smile seemed too bright for this room.

I wasn’t sure how he wanted me to react. He didn’t look like he worked at the museum due to his messy hair and the absence of a name tag. So I just asked, "You come here often?" 

"Yeah, you could say I study the painter." He winked at me. Nobody had ever winked at me that way, like we shared a secret. Only I didn’t know what it was. Sometimes the whole world seemed like a secret I wasn’t let in on.

"For school?"

"No, not exactly." There was another grin, another hint that there was something I should know. Maybe I had seen this boy before? But there was no occasion I could recall where that could have been the case. Not that I was very good with faces.

"My name is Dante by the way." 

That made me laugh. "I’m sorry."

"It’s okay. Most people laugh at my name."

"No, it’s just that my name is Aristotle." He smiled and I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that we had had this conversation before.

"Most people call me Ari."

"Nice to meet you, Ari." He smiled again. I wondered how someone could smile so much.

"So, tell me more about that painting." 

"Well, Descartes was about our age when he drew the guy." "Descartes? Another philosopher?" I couldn’t help a quiet laugh.

"Exactly. Fun fact, the last name of the guy on the painting was Hume." He smiled again before he continued with his talk. "Anyway, they had met at the ‚Grand Plaza‘, which was a huge market at the time. Descartes saw him in front of this small barrow filled with books — they didn’t sell well at that time either, I don’t get the whole fuss about ebooks dropping the book-sales. Whatever. The book he was holding just so happened to be one of Descartes’ favorites and he encouraged him to buy it and rumor has it they never stopped talking since."

"That sounds too good of a story to be true." Dante adverted his gaze to the painting but I didn’t miss the hurt in it. I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal, it was just a painting after all.

"It is." His words were so vehement that I didn’t dare to reply. 

We were quiet for a while. Both of us looking at the painting. I wondered what Dante saw. I wanted to ask him but as I turned my head towards him, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. But Dante had heard the silent question anyway.

"He looks a bit like you, don’t you think?"

"He looks sad." 

"Are you?" Was I? I didn’t consider myself sad. But I guess upon closer inspection I did fulfill every criteria. I shrugged. 

"Have you seen the other painting of his they put up?" Dante asked.

"No." He took my hand and let me around a wall. I tried not to focus on the part were his skin was touching mine. What was it that made him seem so comfortable with things like this?

The other painting was dark. I could barely make out the guy laying lonely in the grass. The stars glistened in the sky above him. And yet, it was peaceful. It felt like sleep without nightmares — comforting. Not that I knew much about sleep without nightmares.

I felt Dante watching me. I looked at him. "It’s nice," I said because I didn’t know what else to say. 

Dante scoffed. "Every painting here is nice."

"Well, there was this one with a weird guy reading a book…" Dante laughed. "Oh please, you _love_ that one." 

"Maybe I do." Dante went silent and his gaze focused on mine.

"Ari, I should probably tell you something."

"Okay."

"Promise you won’t run away."

I chuckled awkwardly. "Why would I run away?"

"Promise." 

"I promise."

"Okay," Dante let out a deep breath. "I drew these." He gestured to the painting. Another chuckle left my mouth. But Dante didn’t laugh.

"You can’t really believe that," I said.

"It is true. This one I drew after a long day on the field. You picked me up that night and we went to an unplanted patch of land and just lay there."

"Wait, you’re not only saying you drew this but also that I’m the one on the painting?" 

"Will you run away when I say yes?" I didn’t have an answer to that. No one had ever tried to convince me that portraits of me were hanging in a museum. Running away seemed like a pretty sane decision to me. 

Dante sighed. "Yes." 

I stayed.

 

"Okay."

"Okay? I just told you we were friends in some past universe and all you have to say is okay?" Dante laughed. We were now sitting on a bench in front of the museum, watching cars ride past.

"What did you expect?" 

"Nothing else." I couldn’t stand the soft look in his eyes.

"So you believe me?" Dante asked.

"I don’t know." 

"But you’re still here."

"I am."

"When can I expect your decision?"

"In six days and three hours." We both bursted out laughing. It was good to laugh, even with a lunatic at your side.

"I should head home. Mom’s probably wondering where I am." If that struck him as an odd thing for a sixteen year old to say, Dante didn’t let it shine through. He simply nodded.

I stood up, waved and made my way to the subway. I couldn’t feel bad for the white lie. What did he expect anyway? That I believed every stranger who crossed my path and told me he was reincarnated? And although Dante didn’t feel like any stranger, I had a hard time believing him. Maybe I was just afraid of what would happen if he was right. I wasn’t sure I could carry a knowledge so heavy.

 

When I got home, I immediately googled Dante. I couldn’t really feel bad for that either. I needed evidence. Evidence that he was wrong, that he was mentally ill or simply pulled a prank on me. But the search didn’t bring up anything other than an outdated facebook profile. 

Next up, I looked into Descartes. Semi-famous painter. His wikipedia page didn’t reveal anything of interest. Ordinary childhood, ordinary life, ordinary death. But one line, so short it nearly escaped me, caught my eye. _Many of his paintings pictured his closest friend, Angel Hume._ He wasn’t linked. Or me… I still didn’t know what to make of this. 

Then I looked at the results for google pictures. And my own face looked back at me in thousand varieties. Some were harder to identify than others but if you saw them all as a collection it was me beyond doubt.

It didn’t seem possible. This couldn’t be true. And yet it was.

 

—

 

The next time I went to the museum, Dante was there again. It had been a month since I last saw him. And I hadn’t had any intentions to change that this morning. Yet, I had gone to the museum. I don’t know what I expected. I had kind of hoped they’d have hung up another one of Descartes’ paintings but that wasn’t the case. 

Instead I was greeted with Dante, Descartes himself as you might say. We were standing beside each other in front of the portrait once again. For a while neither of us said anything. 

"Do you remember other centuries before this one?" I pointed to the painting. "Other lives?"

"Yes."

"Is this the first time you remember?"

"I think it’s the first time I want to." I wanted to ask why, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer. So I didn’t say anything.

"Why do you believe me?" Dante asked.

I didn’t have an answer to that. It hadn’t been a decision. Maybe I never had a choice. "It’s just a feeling." 

Dante smiled. 

 

-

 

We hang out on nearly a daily basis the next couple of weeks. Loads of that time was spend at the pool because as it turned out, Dante loved swimming just as much as I did.

Today was different. Dante came over with his sketchbook. He had drawn me before but this didn’t feel the same. He looked distressed. We sat down on the porch.

"I wasn’t completely honest with you," Dante said.

"Okay." 

"I told you we were friends in our previous lives, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"That was only, only partly true." Dante inhaled. He didn’t look at me. I had the urge to get up and disappear into my room and never get out again. I didn’t.

"It was… it was more," Dante said. "Every time, we were… more. Boyfriends, husbands, lovers. I didn’t say anything because I knew how you’d react. I’ve lived it several times. And I thought maybe this was the life where you were gonna make the first move, but I know that’s not gonna happen. And I can’t hide it from you anymore, I don’t want to. So, here’s the truth. I love you, Ari. I really do."

It took me a minute to answer. "Okay," was all I could manage. I didn’t know what he expected me to say. I didn’t think it mattered if he had lived this before as he said. 

Dante smiled. He had known my answer. Suddenly I was angry at him. I felt trapped. My life wasn’t supposed to be predestined. That was contrary to the whole point of living. I was angry at the universe.

"I’m gonna go inside." I was angry at myself.

 

-

 

Dante had left the sketchbook behind with a little note that simply said _for you_. I don’t know if I’d have looked at it, if it hadn’t fallen from my desk. It had flipped open on a drawing of a bird. I couldn’t turn my gaze away. And so I looked through the rest of it. Passing drawings of his father, himself and… me. I closed the book. There was too much truth in his drawings.

But as the weeks passed I found myself coming back to it. My favorites where his self portraits. But maybe I was biased. Maybe so.

 

-

 

We were at the museum again. They had opened a new section that Dante had wanted to see. Nothing Descartes related. But of course we ended up in front of one of his paintings. This time it was the one on the field.

After Dante had told me the truth, we had still hung out but not as frequently. I think we had both needed space. But I had also set up a rule, no talking about past lives. And I was about to break it.

"Were we together when you drew this?" 

Dante turned his head to me, surprised. "Yeah. We had been for a couple months." 

"Maybe it isn’t so lonely after all."

"Maybe so." 

"I look happy."

"We were."

I turned my head towards him. "Kiss me." Dante’s eyebrows shot up.

"Are you sure?" 

"I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t." 

Dante smiled and leaned in. And then his lips were on mine. My eyes closed. We were kissing. My hands wrapped around his neck. We were kissing. I could feel his smile. And I could feel myself mirroring it. We were kissing. 

And I knew why in all of my past lives this had been a constant. Loving Dante wasn’t predestined, it was a privilege. And I was fortunate enough to have it in all my lives.

We were kissing. And I never wanted to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments etc. are highly appreciated! <3


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